A team of scientists from the John Innes Centre (JIC), UK, visited the BecA-ILRI Hub from 20-22 August 2014. The team included lead crop researchers and PhD students who are collaborating with the BecA-ILRI Hub to develop capacity building-through research-modules to support African national agricultural research system (NARS) scientists in applying Next Generation Sequencing techniques to their breeding programs.

This partnership for the capacity development of African crop breeders is among several capacity building, resource mobilization and technology transfer activities made possible by a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between JIC, ILRI and the BecA-ILRI Hub in January this year.

As an early activity in the BecA-ILRI Hub/JIC alliance, a group of African, BecA and JIC researchers are planning to work together to identify useful molecular markers to accelerate rice breeding for disease resistance and other traits. This undertaking was identified in response to breeding program needs by Negussie Zenna, a rice breeder from the AfricaRice Cente and long-time user of the BecA-ILRI Hub laboratory facilities and service platforms. The project will be implemented at the BecA-ILRI Hub by Jagger Harvey (Scientist, BecA-ILRI Hub); Cristobal Uauy (group leader, JIC); and Tilly Eldridge (PhD student, Coen research group, JIC).